Originally Posted by Eric5273

I cannot remember a single player in the last 15 years who they paid "top dollar" for who turned out to be one of their best impact players and helped them win a world series.

All of their superstars from the World Series teams were either home grown, or were players they traded for when they were still young. None were vetran free agent signings.

Rivera, Pettite, Posada, Jeter, Bernie Williams -- all home grown

Tino Martinez, Paul Oneil, Scott Brosius -- were traded for when they were young and were not superstars yet.

But since 2001, they have stopped letting young players develop and have consistantly traded all their young players for old vetrans and have tried to sign old vetran free agents to fill their roster. Look at the current group, all signed as free agents over the age of 30, and most of them now over 35 years old:

Giambi, Mussina, Damon, Matsui, Randy Johnson, Jared Wright, Shefield, etc.

This is the strategy they used througout the 1980s and which failed miserably. Back then they ended up with players like Andy Hawkins, Gary Ward, Ken Phelps, Jessie Barfield, Rick Rhoden, etc, and traded away young players like Jay Buhner, Al Leiter, Willie McGee, Doug Drabek, and Jose Rijo -- all went on to become stars for other teams.